THE BURDEN OF COMMAND
GDI HIGH-COMMAND, PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE
14:00 MST
General McCaffrey had, for the first time in what felt like a new and terrible lifetime, slept.
He hadn't "napped." He had collapsed.
He had returned to his sterile, concrete, subterranean bunker-room at 04:00, after watching the Hammerfall protocol turn a square-mile of the Amazon into a smoking crater. He had sat on the edge of his cot, intending to "rest his eyes," and had woken up, eight hours later, to the screaming of his internal alarm. He was still in his uniform. It was creased, he was dehydrated, and his mouth tasted like ash.
He was, in a word, exhausted.
And then, he saw the new sit-rep on his terminal.
The exhaustion vanished, vaporized by a new, white-hot, singular fury.
He stormed into the High-Command Center, his face a thundercloud, his bloodshot eyes a testament to his rage. The entire bunker-floor flinched as he bellowed, his voice echoing off the concrete.
"WHAT... IN THE ENTIRE... FUCK... IS 'STRAIN-D'?! AND WHY ARE MY MEN TRAPPED IN A BOX WITH THE WRONG AMMO?!"
[FLASHBACK - GDI POLITICAL-AFFAIRS OFFICE - 8 HOURS EARLIER]
Director-General Kurosawa found Director Li, the head of China's GDI contribution, in the 03:00 AM quiet of the bunker's mess hall. Director Li was nursing a cup of oolong, her face pale.
"The Americans are compromised," Kurosawa said, sitting without invitation. "The 'Sentinel' team. Their rifles are incompatible with the armory manifest you provided."
Director Li's hand shook, the porcelain cup rattling in its saucer. It was the only confirmation Kurosawa needed.
"A... a logistical oversight, Director-General," Li whispered, not meeting her eyes. "Unfortunate."
"Was it, Director?" Kurosawa's voice was like ice. "Or was it a message? A little 'prank' from the 'old world'?"
"It was a statement," Li admitted, her voice cracking. "A reminder that they are not the only power. That they need us. That they should learn to use our tools. It was petty. I know. I... I thought..."
"You thought?" Kurosawa hissed, leaning in. "You thought this was a game? You thought this was the South China Sea? You have, with your petty, childish, political prank, just sentenced twelve Alliance soldiers to death. They are two hundred feet underground, on a hell-planet, with useless rifles, and a dragon—a fucking-dragon, Director—sitting on their roof."
The color drained from Director Li's face. The "Iron Dragon" of the PLA looked broken.
"I... I did not know," she whispered. "It was before the 'Amazon incident.' Before I knew. What... what have I done?"
"You have learned, Director," Kurosawa said, standing, her voice cold. "You have learned that this is not a plaything. Fix it. Or I will report this to the Council as sabotage."
[PRESENT - HIGH-COMMAND BUNKER]
Sir Malcolm Hayes entered McCaffrey's office, walking calmly into the storm of the General's rage.
"General, your volume is counter-productive."
"COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE?!" McCaffrey roared, slamming his fist on his desk. "MY MEN! MY RANGERS! THEY'RE ABOUT TO BE CRUSHED AND EATEN BECAUSE SOME DIPLOMAT THOUGHT IT WOULD BE 'FUN' TO SEND THEM THE WRONG BULLETS!"
"It was a regrettable lapse in judgment," Hayes said, his calm infuriating. "And Director Li is deeply regretting it."
"I'LL BET SHE IS!" McCaffrey bellowed. "SHE'S—!"
"She is also," Hayes cut in, his voice still quiet, "the one who just ordered the entire ROK Space Force to break protocol and launch their only three remaining 'Geobukseon' transports as a rescue force. She is atoning, General."
McCaffrey just deflated. He slumped into his chair, his rage gone, replaced by that crushing, cold, fatigue.
"They won't make it in time, Malcolm," he whispered, his head in his hands. "They're... they're dead. That FOB, that 'city'... it's a coffin. The ceiling is cracking. A kilometer-long dragon is sitting on it."
"Perhaps," Hayes said, walking to the holo-display.
He brought up the Sentinel-1 team manifest.
"They are trapped," Hayes said. "They are outgunned. They are out of time."
He smiled. A thin, cold, calculating smile.
"It is a terrible situation, General."
He tapped one of the names on the list. A name with a black file marker and a demon-head icon next to it.
BROWN, H. (S)
"And what a shame we can't broadcast this one live," Hayes murmured.
McCaffrey's head snapped up. He looked at the name.
"Harris," he breathed.
"Yes, General," Hayes said, his voice a purr. "Harris is there."
A new, different, light came into McCaffrey's eyes. Not hope. Calculation.
"Get... get me a link," McCaffrey growled. "Get me eyes on that bunker. Now."
_______________________________________
THE TOMB
OMEGA. FOB BEDROCK. 14:12 GST
It was a tomb.
The air in the hangar-bay was thick with fear. The 11 Rangers of 'Task Force Sentinel' were not elite soldiers anymore. They were trapped rats.
THUD... GRIND... SKREEEEEEE.
The sound from above was obscene. It was the sound of a mountain of flesh shifting its weight on their roof.
The ceiling groaned. A new, 50-foot spider-web of cracks blossomed from the center, and a chunk of concrete the size of a car crashed onto the hangar floor, shattering.
"JESUS CHRIST!" Specialist "Psycho" Ramirez screamed, diving behind a pre-fab bunk module. "WE'RE DEAD! WE'RE GONNA BE CRUSHED!"
"CAPTAIN!" Edison yelled from the COMMAND module, his voice a high-pitched panic. "THE RESCUE FORCE... THEY'RE LAUNCHING... BUT THEY'RE THREE HOURS OUT! WE DON'T HAVE THREE HOURS! THE CEILING INTEGRITY... IT'S AT 40 PERCENT! IT'S FAILING, SIR!"
Captain "Stone" Russo was raging.
He was not scared. He was furious. He was a Ranger. He did not do 'trapped.'
He was pacing, yelling into his own comm. "CONTROL! THIS IS SENTINEL-1! YOU GET ME A SOLUTION OR I SWEAR TO GOD—!"
"They can't, sir!" Edison sobbed. "They're gone! The Third Factor, they..."
"I DON'T CARE!" Russo roared, slamming his fist into a steel bulkhead. "Wrong ammo... no support... WHAT THE FUCK do they—!"
"Shut up."
The voice was not a roar. It was a rumble.
It cut through the panic, the screaming, the fear.
Harris Brown, the 'Demon,' was standing by the ARMORY module, calmly, methodically repacking his last M61-AP rounds into his last magazine.
He didn't look up.
Russo froze. His rage just died.
He turned. "What... what did you just say to me, Specialist?"
Harris slapped the bottom of his magazine, seating the rounds. Click.
He looked up, his cold, blue, glowing eyes... bored.
"I said, 'shut up.' You are loud. You are scared. And you are useless."
Psycho hissed, "Oh... shit..."
Russo walked right up to Harris. He got in his face.
"You have one second to apologize, 'Specialist,' or your mask isn't the only thing that's fused..."
Harris looked down at the raging, 6-foot-2-inch Ranger Captain.
And he chuckled.
It was a horrible sound. Like gravel and death.
"You are not in charge, 'Captain.' The dragon is."
SKREEEEEEEEE... CRACK!
Another shower of concrete.
"This box is a tomb," Harris rumbled, pushing past Russo. "You can die in it. Or you can get out and fight."
Russo was shaking.
"'Fight'?" he whispered, his rage gone, replaced by desperation. "'Fight what? It's a kilometer-long, Brown! It's a god! What... what is the plan?!"
Harris stopped. He was thinking.
The voices—Miller, Diaz, Dimitri—were screaming in his head.
'Big... TOO BIG...'
'We can't win...'
'Katya...'
"Shut up," Harris muttered to himself.
He turned to the squad.
"The plan is simple," he rumbled.
He pointed to the cracking ceiling. "That is a Leviathan. You cannot kill a Leviathan from underneath it."
He pointed to a small, 2x2-foot panel at the far end of the hangar.
"But the 'Koreans' built a back door."
Edison looked. "The... the ventilation shaft? That's a three-kilometer crawl to the surface...!"
"Yes," Harris said.
"And then what?!" Psycho demanded. "We run?!"
"No," Harris said.
His blue eyes glowed.
"Then we kill it."
Silence.
"How?" Russo breathed.
Harris looked at his HK417. "I will blind it."
He looked at the ARMORY module, at the Chinese-made, stenciled boxes.
"And you will break it."
[20 MINUTES LATER - THE SURFACE]
The crawl was hell. A three-kilometer tunnel—claustrophobic, dark, wet.
But they were out.
They burst from a camouflaged vent into the cold, dark, Omega-night.
They were alive.
"Okay," Russo panted, his chest heaving. "Okay, we're out. Now what, Brown? What now?!"
Harris was already gone.
"Where... where the hell...?"
"UP HERE, CAPTAIN!" 'Deacon's' voice from above.
The entire squad looked up.
Harris was on top of a 200-foot-tall, purple-barked tree. His claws had apparently punched into the bark, and he'd climbed it.
He was in his 'nest.'
"The dragon is sleeping," Harris's voice hissed over the comm. "It's on our door. You have one chance, Captain."
Russo hated this monster. But, my God, he was good.
"Okay, 'Sentinel'!" Russo roared, his own voice finding its strength. "You heard the freak! 'Psycho,' 'Wrecker,' 'Edison'—you are mortar squad! 'Deacon,' you're with me! We are 'Mortar Team Alpha'! You three," he pointed at the other Rangers, "You are 'Mortar Team Bravo'! GO! Get those Chinese tubes NOW!"
The only other weapons in the Armory had been six Type 63 60mm mortars.
The Rangers hated them. They were old, heavy, clunky.
But they were guns.
The two teams scrambled 200 meters to the left and right of the massive, sleeping shadow that was crushing their FOB.
"TEAM-ALPHA SET!" Russo yelled.
"TEAM-BRAVO SET!"
"Now we need a distraction," Harris's voice hissed.
"A distraction?!" Russo hissed back. "WHAT?! YOU WANT ME TO THROW A ROCK?!"
"...No."
Harris looked at the mangled, broken, half-melted 'Hell's Mother' Excavator sitting 20 meters from the dragon's head.
"Edison. You're in the system, yes?"
"Y-yes, Specialist... I still have the FOB link..."
"The excavator is broken. But its power core is not. Turn on the lights."
"Sir?!"
"DO IT."
"YES, SIR!"
Edison fumbled with his wrist-pad.
On the surface, the mangled, dead, 30-ton spider-excavator flickered.
Its external, high-intensity floodlights flickered.
BZZT... FZZZZT... ON.
A thousand lumens of white light hit the side of the dragon's head.
The kilometer-long mountain of flesh HATED it.
It uncoiled.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
The sound broke glass in Russo's helmet display.
The head—the head alone was the size of a B-2 Bomber.
It rose 200 feet into the air.
It looked at the annoying, flickering excavator.
It opened its mouth.
And it breathed.
It wasn't fire. It was purple lightning.
KRAKA-THOOOOOM!
A bolt of pure, concentrated energy hit the excavator.
The 30-ton machine vaporized. It didn't "explode." It was gone.
The dragon roared, satisfied.
It turned its massive, car-sized, reptilian eye...
...right at Harris's tree.
It saw him.
"Mark," Harris whispered.
And he unleashed hell.
He didn't fire one shot.
He emptied his magazine.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!
The HK417, set to semi-auto, bucked in his hands as he poured twenty rounds of M61 Armor-Piercing ammunition into the car-sized, reptilian, glowing-yellow eye.
The eye didn't pop.
It shattered.
It imploded.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
The dragon shrieked, a sound that made the trees bleed. It was blind. It was in agony.
It thrashed, spewing purple lightning, blindly, into the sky, into the forest.
"IT'S NOT DYING!" Psycho screamed.
"IT'S NOT BLIND!" Deacon (the other sniper) roared. "IT'S GOT ANOTHER EYE!"
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!
Harris was already firing at the other eye. He couldn't get a lock.
The dragon roared and slammed its head into the ground, trying to stop the pain.
"MORTARS!" Harris's voice roared, not a whisper but a demon's roar. "NOW! BREAK ITS BACK!"
"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" Russo screamed.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The six mortar tubes coughed.
Twelve seconds later, six 60mm high-explosive rounds rained down on the dragon's back.
PFFT. PFFT. PFFT.
They bounced harmlessly off its kilometer-long, obsidian-like scales.
"INEFFECTIVE!" Edison screamed. "THEY'RE NOT PENETRATING!"
The dragon felt the stings.
It reared up its head, sniffing, finding Mortar Team Alpha.
"IT'S LOOKING AT US!" Russo screamed.
"THE EYE! IT'S BLIND BUT IT SEES HEAT!" Harris roared. "FIRE AGAIN! AIM FOR THE GAP!"
"WHAT GAP?!"
"THE WOUND! FROM ME!"
The dragon's shattered, bloody, eye-socket was gaping.
"DEACON!" Russo roared. "FIRE INTO THE HOLE!"
CRACK!
Deacon's M110 SASS fired. The 7.62mm round flew true.
It hit the raw, bloody, brain-matter inside the eye-socket.
The dragon stiffened.
It stopped roaring.
It stopped moving.
It just hung there, 200 feet in the air, a silent, colossal, terrifying statue.
"Is... is it dead?" Psycho whispered.
And then...
...It fell.
It didn't "fall over."
It collapsed.
Like a mountain range imploding.
"BACK!" Russo screamed, "RUN! RUN!"
The kilometer-long corpse crashed down.
Its head alone vaporized the entire landing zone. It crushed the useless, empty Garuda-4 transport like a tin can.
The shockwave flattened every man in Task Force Sentinel.
They lay there in the mud, deafened, stunned.
Alive.
They had done it.
In the 200-foot tree, Harris lowered his rifle.
He calmly ejected his empty magazine.
He slammed a new one in.
He looked at the mountain of dead flesh that was his kill.
"...One," he rumbled to no one. "That's one."